Sattin Hill Market Farming Course Module 10: Irrigation (FSFS248)

FSFS248 (SHFC #10)

[00:00:00] Diego Footer: Welcome to Farm Small Farm Smart. I'm your host Diego, DIEGO. Today, it's module 10 of the Sattin hill farm course in this module. Josh is talking irrigation. If you want to watch the video presentation of this module, you can do so on Josh's YouTube channel using the link below.

[00:00:26] And if you want to learn more, you can find some written material on each of these modules at paperpot.co/josh, which I've also linked to below. Now let's jump into it. Josh sattin on irrigation.

[00:00:40] Josh Sattin: Welcome to module 10 of the sattin hill farm course. This module is all about irrigation. And before we get into it, I just have to have a huge thanks to our sponsor Paperpot Co. Without the help of Diego and Paperpot Co., this entire course won't be possible. And more than them later.

[00:00:55] In this module, I'll cover overhead versus drip irrigation, farm design, your water source running lines on your farm timers, hand watering and sources for finding irrigation supplies.

[00:01:10] First question you might be asking yourself is whether to go with overhead irrigation or drip irrigate. Or maybe both. And I highly recommend that you consider putting in both. If it's possible. I have both on my farm here and it has been awesome. It gives you the ultimate flexibility and can showing the moisture in the soil and gives you the option to cool down plants and just the, the best possible situation for controlling the environment for your plants to grow.

[00:01:33] And so I will get into later in this module specifically about setting up overhead and drip irrigation, the options there, but I first want to do like a comparison here. So we'll start with overhead. The first thing is you don't have to pull out the drip lines when you have overhead irrigation. If you're relying on that, because if you have drip lines there and you've got to flip the bed, you have to pull the drip lines, do your bed flip, do your planting, and then pull the lines back in.

[00:01:54] Now I've gotten used to it here. It's part of my system. I don't really mind it anymore, but if you have a lot of bed flips to do every day or every week, it's another step. And you want to think about that. I don't generally use my overhead for irrigation at this at the time being, uh, I'm using it more for cooling because I run it in the warmer.

[00:02:11] Uh, for several times a day for short bursts and what it does is it really just brings the temperature down inside my tunnels. And it's kind of like a misting effect. I'm not really doing a lot of, as I said, irrigation with it. And that's why I like that combination, but it's really great for cooling down crops, especially, you know, leafy greens and stuff like that, and warmer weather.

[00:02:28] Another huge benefit of overhead irrigation is if you're doing a lot of direct seeding, you can use the overhead to really soak the ground really evenly. And that really helps with germination. If you have whole blocks that you're planting out of. With a direct seed crop and you can just run the irrigation.

[00:02:44] And just soak everything in. You'll get, you'll get really good germination, which is awesome. But the problem is if you have mixed tunnels, like I do, some things are direct seated while other things are really large. It doesn't really work to do a big soak because that's not necessarily the best thing for those other crops.

[00:02:58] So keep that. What's your planting. And you know, if you're doing whole blocks at a time, we're whole tunnels at all time, overhead can be great. One really big, negative about overhead is if you, if it's, if you have a very windy situation and we encountered this at Raleigh city farm, I didn't really anticipate it.

[00:03:12] We set up overhead and most of our. And there was a ton of wind there on a regular basis. And when it's windy, the water goes everywhere and it doesn't really go very evenly and that can become a big problem. So let's get into drip irrigation. Um, there, as I said, it's better for if it's windy because the water is going to be put right into the soil also much better for taller crops.

[00:03:32] So if you're growing things like tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, you know, eggplants, stuff like that, it really is good to have drip because you're what you're doing is your watering, you know, into the soil and getting it right to the roots where they need it. Also a lot of those other crops, don't like to get water on them quite a bit.

[00:03:47] You can get, um, you know, they're just not as happy. So it's, you know, I, I do really like having drip irrigation for those kinds of crops, especially also with drip irrigation, it's a ton of. There's a lot of plastic that goes into the drip lines and I'll get into my opinion about that a little bit later, but it's something to consider.

[00:04:06] If you're really trying to minimize the amount of plastic, they do have to get replaced somewhat regularly. So keep that in mind. And in addition to that, I do cut them every once in a while, when I'm harvesting with a knife, I've gotten better over time. But I think if you have people that are newer on your farm, you will have those mistakes and they'll, you know, that'll turn into different kinds of repairs and things like that.

[00:04:24] Overall, I would say drip irrigation uses less water because it's much more pinpointed to the soil. You're not spraying it everywhere. So if you're in an area where either water is very expensive or not very available, drip can be great. Cause you can use less water water because it's, you know, very, it's applied very specifically to where you need it.

[00:04:42] Also keep in on your soil type. If you have very Sandy soil, uh, drip might not be great. Cause the water's just going to kind of hit the soil and run straight down. So depending on your soil type, you might want to use one or the other, or maybe a combination of both.

[00:04:57] As I mentioned in the farm design module, I really recommend that you design your farm based on the irrigation system, because if you set up your farm and then try to apply irrigation, it may not match up completely. Now, if you're going with tunnels, there are great systems for irrigation and tunnels, but if you're setting up field growing, really think about the sprinklers.

[00:05:16] If you're doing overhead or drip or whatever you want to set up, make sure you think about it in terms of field blocks. Not just the coverage, but the water flow that you're going to need for each of these setups. So really keep that in mind. And the other thing I've mentioned before in previous modules is standardization is absolutely crucial.

[00:05:33] Make sure your beds are all the same size. Make sure your field blocks are all the same size. That way, everything just works seamlessly when you're setting up your irrigation system.

[00:05:45] A big part of the irrigation system is going to be your water source. And when you are looking to add a farm or a garden somewhere, or if you are looking to buy a property or lease a property, you've got to think about the water source there. Where's it coming from? The quality of the water, the quantity of the water, and also the cost of the water.

[00:06:03] These are all things you need to consider, so I'll talk a little bit about all those things, but I'll talk I'll first start off by talking about what I have here. So I live in a suburban area on a two acre lot, and we have a well for our house. And basically I'm tied into that. And I basically bypassed our house water system and have a separate line coming out for irrigation here.

[00:06:24] So I know my limitations of my well, and I don't, I couldn't actually have a much bigger farm because I don't have that much water here. So when you are looking at your water source, you do want to connect. The pressure, like how much pressure you get out of your system and the flow rate in terms of gallons per minute.

[00:06:42] Now, every well is rated for a certain gallons a minute at a certain pressure. They'll put the right pumping. I learned about all this stuff, because my well pump went out a few years ago. And when I had a new one installed, I asked him a bunch of questions and we talked about, you know, how much water I can pull, how much I can run it and stuff like that.

[00:06:57] And so I'm good for what I have here, but I have to be very careful about how I run my irrigation. I'll get into that more later, but those are the things you need to consider now in terms of city water, uh, it can get very expensive depending on where you are. Uh, it is very convenient because you don't have to really manage anything.

[00:07:13] You don't have to manage a well or a rainwater system or anything like that. You hook it up and you're good to go. You might want to consider filtering the water, taking out chlorine and chloramines. I don't know a ton about that stuff, but I would probably try to remove that if I could. There's probably.

[00:07:28] Filter options out there. Um, I don't have much experience with that because I'm not worrying about that here. Cause we don't have that in our water. Um, people ask me all the time about rainwater capture. There are definitely places where this is a good idea and I don't have a ton of experience beyond what we were using at Raleigh city farm.

[00:07:46] We did have a rainwater system there that, um, was installed before I got there and it was a serious headache. It was always having issues. It was a very complicated system. Um, but we were using it as much as possible. And one thing I recommend with rainwater systems is that you do have a backup also. So that's.

[00:08:03] You know, we had a big rainwater capture, two big tanks, but we also had a city water to aid in that if it didn't rain for a while. So I think a hybrid system is great. Um, I don't recommend it in my context here because I have on a well with basically unlimited water. And also, um, it rains so much here.

[00:08:20] I'm just trying to get the water off my property and I've talked about quite a bit. So I don't know, beyond the system that I got to use it while I city. There are there companies that can help you set these things up and all that kind of stuff. If you're in an area, as I said, that doesn't get a lot of rainfall and you want to try to save some water, you know, it's a great option, but I wouldn't put a ton of energy into it for, you know, maybe, you know, a little bit of output.

[00:08:43] And I think having a backup system is crucial, uh, with a farm because if it doesn't rain for a while and he run out of. That's probably the time your crops seed water. Uh, also, so keep that in mind now, make sure you're calculating your flow rates. And this is how you start designing your, um, your irrigation system because every sprinkler head, every drip system will give you a flow rate in terms of gallons per minute.

[00:09:08] So in terms of drip, it'll say gallons per minute per foot, or something like that, and you can calculate how much water you're going to need. Uh, for each system, uh, sprinkle heads will say that as well. And then you can sort of add it up and you can start figuring, okay, I can run one tunnel at a time or a half a tunnel at a time or a full field block at a time.

[00:09:25] And once you get that sorted out, then you can sort of work that into your farm design and figure out, um, you know, how you're going to set everything up. So keep that in mind because you can get in a situation, and I will talk about that here, where I actually can't run all my overheads in one tunnel at a time.

[00:09:42] I don't have enough flow rate. You do need a lot of water to run, uh, even a small commercial farm. So make sure you're doing those calculations and you can get those from all the manufacturers for all that stuff. Keep in mind also, you're going to need water, not just for irrigation, but you're also gonna need potable water for your wash station and keep that in mind, because if you are washing quite a bit of vegetables and you're filling your filling and dumping, um, you know, your like greens tanks and stuff like that, you're gonna need a little bit of water there.

[00:10:09] So a lot of things to consider, but, uh, think about your water source. And if you have any questions or concerns, get your water tested and make sure it's clean and doesn't have anything bad in it. And. Yeah. Just, just really think through your water sources. If you have enough water for your needs on your farm,

[00:10:30] now that you've put some thought into your water source and your farm design and how much water you're going to need for your farm in different field blocks and tunnels and all the kind of stuff you need to build. The water out to where you need it. So when the water comes off of my house and comes out to the farm, right, as it comes off the house, I have a sediment filter in line, and this is nothing special.

[00:10:49] It was just like leftover from another thing. There's no chemical filtration or anything. That's just a basic setting filter. And the reason for that is a lot of times, especially with well water, you'll get some mineral content or some chunks or whatever in there. That could get stuck inside of the valves in the timers.

[00:11:05] And it had this problem before where a little piece of something got stuck in there and the valve wouldn't close all the way and water would just run and run and run and run very slowly. So that has taken care of that problem. Now coming past there, I have one main irrigation line that comes out to the farm and it runs under here.

[00:11:19] I've talked about this plenty of times before and everything T's off of it. Now for that, I use three quarter inch black plastic irrigation line. I got this at Lowe's in retrofit. I would've gone for something bigger. And the reason for that is that when you run long lines, there's a lot of resistance and it lowers the flow rate over time because you know, there's a lot of resistance that the water has to push through.

[00:11:43] So I probably would have sized up to maybe. I'm not an expert in this at all. So if you are setting up a farm, especially a decent sized farm, like I would definitely contact a local irrigation specialist because they're specialists, they're experts in it. They'll help you and tell you exactly what you need for your flow rates and all those sorts of things.

[00:11:58] So, um, yeah, that's what I use, you know, it's working, I think it probably could have been tweaked a little bit. I'm not about to take it out at, at the time being cause it is working. And, um, the thing about the irrigation line that I do recommend is trying to bury it whenever possible. And there's a few reasons for this one is it's very tidy.

[00:12:18] Like you don't see the lines, it's also not a trip hazard. It keeps the lines a little bit cooler in the summertime and you don't have to deal with like weed management and stuff. Cause like when you have lines around, um, you know, things can grow on them and all that sort of stuff. So most of my lines are buried out of the way.

[00:12:32] It also looks way nicer to, and. Uh, as I said, plenty of times, that's something you should never overlook on the ends of my main irrigation lines. I have a drain valve, which I mentioned in the winter growing module and that's so I can drain everything out. And at the top of the line, I have another tea with a valve and that allows air in.

[00:12:51] So I can open up the valves, the ends of my lines, open up that valve flood errand, and it drains everything out. So again, if you have questions. Uh, winterizing waterlines and stuff. Go check out the last module. I have lots of stuff in there. I highly recommend multiple zones of irrigation for flexibility.

[00:13:06] Um, just be. Things happen or you're not planting everything at once. So having different zones is awesome. And the last thing I want to mention about running lines is there's a lot of different kinds of fittings out there for this irrigation lines. And a lot of it you're gonna be using three quarter or one inch and stuff like that.

[00:13:22] So there's one, that's like this, this is like a quick fitting. And I was using these all the time on the farm because they're super easy to set up and it gives you flexibility to move things around, which is great. The problem is they wind up popping off every so often. And then water's is flying out everywhere.

[00:13:38] I had this problem at my farm. We also use a bunch of these arise city farm and it would pop off and then water be running all over the farm until someone like called me and then I have to go fix it, or someone else will turn off the water, whatever. So what I've done now is I've switched to just the standard.

[00:13:52] Fittings with the hose clamp, I'm using these as much as possible on the farm and I've, hadn't like way less issues. So it's less flexible. Uh, it might be a little bit cheaper though. These, these are a little bit more expensive, but generally once you get to being dialed in, I really recommend these because I've had way less leaks.

[00:14:11] I love having timers on the farm, and I think they're vital to getting things a lot more consistent, but you know, keep in mind with timers, you know, there is no set it and forget it with anything. And. So this is a great tool, but you need to learn how to work with it, but there's a lot of benefits to it.

[00:14:26] And I want to get into that. And then I'll talk about specifically about this setup here. So people always ask me the first question is how long do you run your irrigation? Well, it changes throughout the course of the year, and it will depend on everyone system in terms of water flow and you know, how much is connected to your system and your soil type and the temperature and all those kinds of things.

[00:14:47] So what I use the timers for is a couple of things. One is I don't have to check it every single day, or I don't have to come out and change valves, but the are open and closed valves, but one thing is you can make a setting for it, right? You can set it for a certain amount of. And then let it run for a couple days and then you can see, okay, it's too wet or it's too dry.

[00:15:05] And you can make changes. Now with the tunnels, especially, you know, it's not raining in here so I can get a pretty consistent, so I'll have it set for certain amount of time. And then every couple of days, you know, I'm checking on it and be like, oh, it's too wet or too dry. And then I just change this by a few minutes or 10 minutes or 20 minutes.

[00:15:20] And I'm good. So it allows you to get much more consistent watering in combination with the tunnel. The other thing is if you need to go away for a day or a weekend or something like that, you can let it. And you're not going to be stressed about it, but I wouldn't want to leave it for an extended period of time without somebody checking on it, because there's nothing automatic with farming.

[00:15:37] You have to really make sure you're, you're checking on things. But I have to say that ability to either you're gone for a full day, like if you're out doing deliveries one day, you're at a farmer's market and no one combined your irrigation, this will just run all the time. And that is huge. So taking the time to set up.

[00:15:51] Um, I think is great. And also you can run this in manual mode. So if you just like need a burst of water somewhere, or want to put a little bit extra water on it some day, because it's super warm, you can do that. So let's talk about this set up here, because there's a lot of things I like about this. I know this kind of looks very simple, but there's a lot of thought that went into this.

[00:16:08] So this timer is for one tunnel and each tunnel has the same exact setup. I'm a huge fan of standardization. So when I come, I need to make. All of them work the same. I don't have to think about it. Like, oh, this one's set up this way. This one's set up that way. It's super easy. So this timer is mounted on this post here.

[00:16:25] And the reason for that is keeping it up high so I can easily see it and make adjustments. I don't have to lean over. Uh, it's just really easy on me. Anytime you can not lean over is a win as far as I'm concerned. So the water is coming in here and this line runs and is teed off to that main irrigation line, which I talked about.

[00:16:40] There are two zones here for the overhead and two zones for the drip, and this is a timer that can control all that. There are a lot of timers out there. I haven't used all of them. This one's made by Melnor, uh, of the cheaper timers. This one's been working really well. I've had some that didn't last very long.

[00:16:58] These have been great. So I'll leave a link for you. Um, I'd recommend them. They they've lasted and they've worked pretty well. And so what you can see here is these are pressure reducers that we need for the drip. And, um, this is awesome. The other thing that. Is that you can set up multiple times a day.

[00:17:13] So for misting, as I mentioned earlier, if you're going to be cooling down crops, you can run the overhead several times a day for less periods of time, and you can also stagger things. So not everything's running at the same time, which is huge for me because I can't actually run the full a hundred feet at once.

[00:17:27] So I'll stagger one section and the other, cause I have multiple zones in here. So huge fan of timers. Um, I couldn't imagine trying to run a farm without having some sort of timers because of just the opening, closing of valves, setting time. Uh, and like on your phone or whatever like this, you gotta, you gotta set this up.

[00:17:44] This is a huge benefit. Uh, it's gonna save you a lot of time getting more consistent results. And especially if you have people helping you, it's not just you. This is a lot easier to manage. Let me jump in here real quick and take a minute to talk about our sponsor paper pod co, as I mentioned at the beginning of this module, this entire course is sponsored by.

[00:18:02] And I wouldn't be able to do this course without the help and support of Diego and paypal.co. And I truly mean that for me, they'll make this course and give away for free to all of you on YouTube. I couldn't do without their support. So please go check, go to paypal.co, check out the heifer sale. They have some great tools, equipment, and supplies.

[00:18:16] They really have high quality stuff and they focus on fantastic customer service. In addition to being the owner and founder of pay pod code Eagles, also a podcast or on YouTube, or go check out his podcast, including farm small farm spark and his new one carrot camp. In addition to all that there are extra resources for this course over at paper, pod.co/josh.

[00:18:35] So go ahead over there, let them know you're joining the course and I really do appreciate them sponsoring this. Now back to the module.

[00:18:44] Now let's talk about overhead irrigation and I'll talk first, specifically about my system here. And then a little bit generally after that, as I said, plenty of times, I'm using the 14 by 100 foot Gothic pro tunnels from farmer's friend, Elsa bought their a hundred. Irrigation kit. And I want to talk about that a little bit, and then I will also talk about some modifications and the installation for that as well.

[00:19:03] So overall, I've been pretty pleased with it. Uh, it does work really, really well, and the way it works is there's one main line that runs down the top of the tunnel. And then there are these smaller, short lines that pop into that. And then these sprinkler heads pop into those shorter lines and they just sort of dangled down the middle.

[00:19:19] Now these are, these sprinkler heads are great for a couple of reasons. One is this little guy on the bottom spins. And when the water is running, it creates this really nice, gentle, even mist. And it's nice and soft, but it also does a really good job at soaking everything very evenly. And I've really thinks it does a great job.

[00:19:34] I really do think it does a great job also on the top. There's this. Check valve type deal. And this prevents water from dripping once the water's turned off, which is an awesome feature because I've heard from other systems where when you turn the water off, water will just drip out of here for a while until the lines are empty and it's just annoying.

[00:19:51] But also then you have like extra spots of water that are uneven on the ground. So that's a great little feature. Now, one thing that's. I don't know if it's as common, but over the winter, uh, this was my first winter and a lot of these fell out. And I think the reason for that is once it got cold, the plastic shrunk, and these are just fiction friction fit in to those lines that come down and they just fell out.

[00:20:10] So I've been having to like walk around and pick these up all winter. Uh, maybe next winter, probably just proactively just take them all out at once. So then the big modification I did here was I took the a hundred foot kit and it turned into two 50 foot zones and there are two reasons I did that. So I want to talk about those.

[00:20:26] First of which is I didn't have the flow rate to run a hundred feet at once. And I figured that out based on the numbers that farmer's friend gave me. And I also know my flow rate for my system here. So I couldn't run both at once. So what I do is I run one section and then the other, and that gives me enough flow rate to run the system effectively.

[00:20:42] Now, the other benefit about having two overhead zones is that you can water different parts of the tunnel in different ways. And so that's great because if you have like one block that you just like direct seeded a whole bunch of stuff, and you want to. Um, a good soaking. You can run that zone heavy for a little while just to get the stuff to germinate and then run the other zones differently and accordingly based on what they need.

[00:21:04] So having that flexibility is great. And also if you have a lower flow rate, it allows you to set this up and run it properly. So let me show you some of the installation and modifications. Now, as I mentioned, I modified this a hundred kits, turned into two 50 foot kits and to do that, I had to run two separate water lines, obviously one for each.

[00:21:22] So basically these two lines come off of the timer, like I showed you before. And then they both run up here and down the top of the tunnel. And let me show you what I did. You're looking at the plumbing connections here in the middle of the tunnel. And I just want to show you this so you can see I've modified this kit to work with two zones.

[00:21:37] So coming in from the left-hand side of your screen, there, you have the white line, which is the main header that comes with the farmer's friend kit. And that's where those dropdown lines and square door heads attached directly to. And that's a one-inch line. Now the other line coming in from the left is that three quarter inch black irrigation line that I was talking about.

[00:21:54] And on the right-hand side of the screen, you can see it attaches to the white header. Again, that is for the back half zone, the back 50 feet of the tunnel. And so, because the irrigation line is different size. I had to get a three quarter inch to one inch Barb adapter to connect those two together in the middle of the screen, you see a right angle and that is the drain and pressure relief for, for the zone here.

[00:22:17] And that runs down the side here so that if it does dump it, doesn't dump onto. Now, what you're looking at is the end of the system here. And this is the end of the. Four beds and there's an extra pressure leaf, a dump valve type thing. One comes with the pharmacy trend Kip. I had buy an extra one. If you look closely, you can all see a lizard up there. It was pretty cool.

[00:22:40] Now let's talk about drip. And as I mentioned earlier, I didn't start with drip, but I've really grown to love it over the last year or two. And the reason for that is it just because he's so much more controlled. A lot of times you want to get moisture into the soil to get to the roots, but you don't want to get the plants wet.

[00:22:53] Uh, cause a lot of times you're fighting just to keep the moisture down where I live. And so if you can keep the plants dryer and just irrigate and get the water to the soil, that helps a lot. It's in terms of the drip tape I'm using, I'm using the Toro Aqua tracks, uh, the one with the thicker plastic. So it lasts longer.

[00:23:08] So I don't have to like keep throwing it away and getting new stuff. At least limiting that I also have an eight inch space. I don't know if you can get them with a smaller space, but I recommend shorter spacings because if you have, if they were 12 inches apart or further, then depending on the crops, it may not even get the water to where you need to go.

[00:23:24] So if you have the emitters closer together, you'll have more flexibility in terms of watering. Now, one thing to consider with drip is that you need to lower the pressure. Uh, earlier when I was showing you the timer, I have pressure reducers on there and drip need between eight and 15 PSI. So I usually use a 10 PSI pressure reducer.

[00:23:43] And so for all of these drip systems here, I have one main header and I'll go through all the details. So there's one main header here where all the lines T off of. So what I have everything set up for right now is all of the beds are set up for three lines, but I generally run two or three depending on the crop.

[00:23:58] So for example, here, I got squash. I'm running two lines. There's only one row of them. If I'm doing four rows of lettuce, I'll run three lines of drip. If I'm doing three rows of lettuce, I'll run two lines of drip and so on. If it's a direct seed crop like carrots or radish or something like that, I'll run three lines.

[00:24:14] And so that's why you see three lines over here. So let me show you some of the details, the beginning of the tunnel here, and you can see there's two lines coming in back here. One is for this header for these four beds and the other line runs back for the header for the back four beds, because that has the same exact system as here.

[00:24:29] So this header runs across the top of the. We have our valves here for our three lines. That way it can do any combination of those. And so these are really easy to turn on and off and disconnect. So if I am done with a bed, I can just turn the water off. Um, and if I'm swapping them out, they're very easy.

[00:24:46] These are quick fittings. They unscrew and pop off. One thing I always recommend is when you're putting them back on is to turn this water. And just open the valve and let the water blow out. And so, cause there's always gonna be dirt in there. So you let it run for a second and then you close it and then put the drip back on ton of flexibility with the system.

[00:25:08] One other thing I want to point out is hopefully you can see that these are radishes I seeded a few days ago and they're just starting to come up and you can see how the water is not everywhere across the bed. So you can see this will definitely not work for direct seeding. So I've been hand watering this in addition to.

[00:25:22] Now, this is down at the end of the header. And I have basically a, um, a fitting here that I can open up. You can put a valve here. This is just a, um, a garden hose end cap type deal. And the reason for this is that you can flush out the lines if you ever need to do that, or if we really want to make sure all the water's out for whatever reason, uh, you can just open this up, but I do use it for flushing out the lines.

[00:25:41] Firefly. I need to do that. So now I'm over here in the middle of the tunnel and you can see how the setup here is exactly the same. So this is the other line that comes back from the. And then at the ends of the drip lines, what I'm using here are these end pieces that have a little loop on them. And if she's a landscape staple and these guys go in and pop in the ground every once in a while, they'll, um, they'll get loose just from the heat or the landscapes tables move a little bit.

[00:26:07] He just pushed them down every once in a while and keeps them nice and straight.

[00:26:13] In my opinion, it's important to be able to hand water beds because sometimes you really need. One situation is right after you direct seed crop. It needs a little bit more water to make sure the germination happens because the top layer of soil can dry out pretty easily. Sometimes, especially if it's windy or maybe there's an area that just doesn't get as much water and need to water a little bit.

[00:26:30] So being able to easily hand water beds, I think is awesome. And I want to show you the system I have here because it's been working super, super well. If you've ever tried to drag a garden hose between beds or out, somewhere out on a field, you know, it's a hassle. And so I want to show you the system I have.

[00:26:46] I have this product from, from hose link. Um, this video is not sponsored by them, but they have sponsored videos in the past, but anything like this, like a garden hose reel setup, um, is great and allows you to just pull out a hose and get anywhere you need. So I like this so much. I have one of these on both sides of the tunnels and I can pull out a hose super easily to any of the beds without any problem.

[00:27:07] Now, one thing is when you start pulling hoses through beds is the, the hose will fall into a bed and then it'll destroy some plants. Stuff like that. And you have someone helping you like pull the lines and stuff. It can be kind of a headache. So what I did was we set up these little like bumpers or whatever.

[00:27:22] And so inside of this as a, you post a, you can use a T post, whatever you have laying around or whatever fits inside. Uh, this is just a scrap piece of PVC. And let me show you how this works. So as I walked down here, the hose is going to rest against this and because it's tall, it doesn't jump over it.

[00:27:36] And this keeps it in the walkway as I walked down this way. So it works. And then when I'm done, I just give it a tug and it goes right back in, out of the way. So having a way to easily water beds, I think is awesome. So there's, if you're on a bigger farm, they make reels like this that are on like a little cart with wheels and you can just pull it to the end of where you need it, pull the hose straight out and then pull it through.

[00:28:05] So don't think that just having all these systems means you can water everything effectively. Sometimes it's best to go in by hand and get the hand watering done.

[00:28:17] There are a lot of places to buy irrigation supplies. And so if you're looking for someplace online to find them, if you're looking for the overhead irrigation kit, obviously farmer's friend is where I got that from. I'll leave that link down below, but in terms of parts I bought from other companies, they've all been great.

[00:28:29] Drip Depot, drip works. Berry hill are three different options. I've all used in the past and have been. Uh, you could also find local irrigation supply stores. There are lots of them out there and actually having one little local can be handy. If you're missing a partner too, you can run and get them.

[00:28:43] There are some stuff you can find it, a whole home Depot or Lowe's, you're not able to find everything. I'm not going to lay out a whole parts kit for all this stuff, because it's just vary so much. But I think what I've done here is give you a framework to think about all the things you might need. And you're going to have to.

[00:28:56] Um, plumbing, knowledge and expertise and practice to like put this stuff together, but it's not super hard. I will leave links down below for things I can find, but generally, um, you're going to have to design your system, but keep in mind all the things that we talked about in terms of. And, uh, farm design and overhead and drip and all that kind of stuff.

[00:29:15] Remember, there's always going to be live Q and A's every Monday at 3:00 PM Eastern. So I hope you come and check that out and ask me questions. Also, the next module module seven will all be about seed starting and nursery management.

[00:29:34] Diego Footer: There, you have it, Josh satin on irrigation, and that was module two.Of the satin hill farm course, if you enjoyed this module and you want to learn more, go to paper, pot.co/josh, and you can find written resources for each of the modules in the course. There's also a link there to watch each of these modules as presented on Joshua's YouTube channel. That's all for this one.

[00:29:54] I hope you enjoyed it. Thanks for listening. And until next time, be nice. Be thankful and do the work.